Greatest hits: Henrik Pontoppidan, "Lucky Per"; the 2024 series "Shōgun"; the long-awaited second season of the Disney series "Andor"; disappointments: "Dance Hall of the Dead"
“SHOGUN” -- "Anjin" -- Episode 1 (Airs February 27) Pictured: Hiroyuki Sanada as Yoshii Toranaga. CR: Katie Yu/FX
What happened to you, Ashley, during April?
Well, I fell in love with a specter. The specter of communism. Did you hear that it’s haunting Europe? (first lines from The Communist Manifesto).
Ein Gespenst geht um in Europa – das Gespenst des Kommunismus.
I learned that the infrastructure of EVs is like the freaking wild west, unless you own a Tesla. So that asshole may be an asshole, but he figured something out. So beware central Pennsylvania.
— Tony Hillerman, Dance Hall of the Dead, 40 pp.
This novel received the 1973 Edgar Award for Best Novel. And this was part of the reason that I chose to read it. Wasn’t worth it, in my opinion. I mean, it wasn’t bad. But neither was it good.
— The Great Escape (1963)
Directed by John Sturges, with the screenplay by James Clavell and W.R. Burnett, adapted from the novel of the same name by Paul Brickhall. Starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence, and James Coburn.
My son Lucian is desperately interested in any and all things pertaining to the WWII. And I think he liked McQueen’s motorcycle scene.
It’s not a bad film … and what a fucking cast! But I thought the most interesting part was Donald Pleasence’s character’s discovery that he was going blind. And the ending execution, reminding us that hijinks had consequences. These are the fucking Nazis, after all.
They don’t call them Nazis for nuttin’!
— Lonesome Dove (1989), “Return” [the fourth and final episode], aired Feb. 8, 1989 on the erstwhile major television network CBS … back in the days when people would turn on the TV at a certain time to watch a certain program, allowing that their lives could be structured by the decisions of executives ensconced in fancy offices a world away.
Directed by Simon Wincer, with a teleplay by William D. Wittliff, based on the novel by Larry McMurtry; starring Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Diane Lane, Danny Glover, Anjelica Huston, Robert Urich, Frederic Forrest, and Rick Schroder.
I dare you to dislike Robert Duvall, to belittle his contributions to le cinéma!
Yet, honestly, his McCrae was a little bit of a repeat of a number of other characters he played (e.g., Gone In Sixty Seconds, the derivative second version, of course; or the hilarious Days of Thunder). Which is not to say that his character was not compelling. Especially in this episode in which he decides against a surgery that would leave him mutilated by alive.
Jones’ character has less dimension, which I wager would be harder to do successfully, and very easy to slop along. This episode has Jones’ Call take his partner’s body back to Texas to be buried, but that was not an easy task.
I have a real softness for buddy films, I must confess. Fried Green Tomatoes provokes the water works every time. And don’t get me started about Lethal Weapon! Okay, just kidding. But I was serious about FGT.
— Dance Hall, 30 pp.
— Finished Pontoppidan, Lucky Per
— Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)
Written and directed by James Gunn; starring Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Vin Diesel (voice), Bradley Cooper (voice), Sean Gunn, Chukwudi Iwuji, Will Poulter, and Maria Bakalova.
Just goes to show that as long as you have popular music you can make anything seem exciting. Even a complicated scene involving a terrifying alien creature threatening the life of our heroes.
Of course, there was more to this film. But if I was required to remember what it was, that might be a tall order.
— Finished Dance Hall of the Dead
— Shōgun (2024), 1 “Anjin” and 2 “Servants of Two Masters” aired on Feb. 27, 2024 on Hulu; 3 “Tomorrow is Tomorrow” aired on Mar. 5, 2024.
Directed by Fred Toye (Episodes 1–2) and Jonathan van Tulleken (Episode 3); written by Justin Marks, Rachel Kondo, and others; based on the novel by James Clavell.
The series stars Hiroyuki Sanada, Cosmo Jarvis, Anna Sawai, and Tadanobu Asano.
When I was a boy my parents watched the original Shōgun series (1980), starring Richard Chamberlain, as it aired on network television (NBC). In fact, I think because of that I believe Chamberlain to be an actor who required some deference. I didn’t even know that Toshiro Mifune had starred in this … until just now.
Shit, maybe I should watch that.
It’s even occurred to me that I might read the book! But honestly, I suspect it’s an ahistorical yada yada … and I have Virginia Woolf to read.
This series, created by the FX network, is quite good, and at least partially so because of the central character played by Cosmo Jarvis (who I suspect incites deep sighs from most women …).
The latter’s character undergoes quite a fascinating and believable transformation throughout from an incredulous Westerner flummoxed by these funny people to an individual that countenances his tremendous ignorance and parochialism.
But of perhaps greater value to this series is the legal, cultural, and political wranglings that take place between Toranaga and Yabushige and the question if a shogun is what is needed. This latter question is so incredibly prescient at this very moment.
In the end, it seems very much like Toranaga may be a kind of cynical figure, who knows that he cannot seek the shogunate but deeply desires it, and therefore cunningly pursues it. Yet without convincing the audience that he lacks virtue or worth.
— Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö, The Laughing Policeman, 53 pp.
Saw the first 15 minutes of the 1972 film adaptation of this book and learnt of the renown of this series of detective novels.
— Shōgun (2024), 4 “The Eightfold Fence” aired 3/12/24; 5 “Broken to the Fist” 3/19/24; 6 “Ladies of the Willow World“
— The Laughing Policeman, 50 pp.
— The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
Directed by Andrew Adamson; screenplay by Ann Peacock, Andrew Adamson, Christopher Markus, and Stephen McFeely; based on the novel by C. S. Lewis.
Starring Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Tilda Swinton, James McAvoy, Jim Broadbent, and Liam Neeson (voice).
Who is to blame for the preponderance of fantasy films whose condition for possibility is rooted in the declining costs and increasing powers of CGI? Should we throw Herr Lucas himself under the bus for this?
I read this book with my son several years ago, in part because my father read it to me and my sister. Yet I was sort of disappointed by the intense Christian imagery.
— Shōgun, Episodes 7–8
— Finished The Laughing Policeman
— Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)
Directed by Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg; screenplay by Jeff Nathanson, from a story by Nathanson and Terry Rossio.
Starring Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, and Geoffrey Rush.
Dare I say again, just because you can do it, this does not mean you should do it?
It’s just eye-candy with an uninteresting plot.
— Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001), 45 minutes
Directed by Chris Columbus; screenplay by Columbus, Steve Kloves, and J.K. Rowling; based on the novel by Rowling.
Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Richard Harris, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Robbie Coltrane, and Tom Felton.
— Sjöwall & Wahlöö, Roseanna, 10 pp.
— Matlock (2024), 1.19 “The Tricks of the Trade, Part 2”
Directed by Kat Coiro; written by Nicki Renna.
Starring Kathy Bates, Skye P. Marshall, David Del Rio, Leah Lewis, Jason Ritter, Aaron D. Harris, Felisha Terrell, Niko Nicotera.
When I was growing up the original television show starring Andy Griffith (1986-92) aired. Was terribly boring, but burnished the image of Griffith as a well-meaning Southern gentleman, first put in place by his long-running Sheriff Taylor in The Andy Griffith Show (1960-68).
An image that would be destroyed when I finally had the joy of seeing the latter in Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd (1957). In the latter, Griffith plays a calculating, cynical television celebrity.
Whereas, the new Matlock has possibly nothing in common with its predecessor, other than an Atlanta lawyer? My mother enjoys this show, apparently, but I suspect she has never seen Kathy Bates’ incredible performance in Misery (1990). She would not forget that. This new role, sadly, is eminently forgettable.
— Geology Bites, “Lindy Elkins-Tanton on the Origin of Earth’s Water“
Given the importance of water for organic life, it’s surprising to learn that its presence is by no means to be taken for granted, as the arid surface of Mars shows — a planet that once possessed water like does its terrestrial sister.
Bet ‘ya never thought about that, did’ja?
— The War (2007), 1 “A Necessary War” aired 9/23/07 on PBS.
Directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, written by Geoffrey Ward, and narrated primarily by Keith David.
— Roseanna, 40 pp.
— Tom Horn (1980)
Directed by William Wiard; screenplay by Thomas McGuane and Bud Shrake; starring Steve McQueen, Richard Farnsworth, and Linda Evans.
This is one of those strange movies about a historical person that probably should not be memorialized in any film. But as they say, there’s no such thing as bad publicity! Tom Horn was essentially a vigilante, hired by cattle farmers to stop rustlers. The rustlers are nearly universally shown as loathsome characters, and this is unlike the representations appearing in Lonesome Dove, for example.
One interesting development of the film occurs when the cattle industry
This film is driven in part by his love affair with Linda Evans’ character.
But Richard Farnsworth plays an important role — this salt of the earth actor always has these generally likable roles (I first encountered him in Anne of Green Gables [1985], back in the 1980s).
One of McQueen’s last roles before he died of cancer.
The most memorable scene was probably the one where his horse is killed by his quarry and in turn prompts an excessive shooting that, were it filmed by Quentin Tarantino like in The Hateful Eight (2017), would have shown to have mutilated the body of the victim.
The ending of the film is also memorable because of (1) the fact that a special machine had to be created to pull the lever hanging Horn and (2) Horn’s faith in the power of the Indian bones.
— Roseanna, 15 pp.
— Andor (2024), episodes 2.1 “The Eye” and 2.2 “Announcement” aired on September 20 and 27, 2024, respectively, on Disney+.
Directed by Ariel Kleiman; written by Tony Gilroy and others; based on the Star Wars franchise created by George Lucas.
The series stars Diego Luna, Genevieve O’Reilly, Stellan Skarsgård, and Adria Arjona.
It was because of the series Andor that I began subscribing to Disney+, in anticipation of this second season. In fact, I am not sure why I started watching this back in February, but I’m definitely hooked.
Whereas the second season starts everything turning toward Rogue One, where the finale lets off. And insodoing effects a dramatic reinterpretation of Andor’s character in the latter. As I have written elsewhere, he is by no means a typical Star Wars character. In fact, the closest that the series had come prior to this was Han Solo, at least for a little while, or Count Dooku.
By which I mean, characters whose virtue is always in question.
But, you ask, why are such characters important? Why do they matter?
From an aesthetic point of view, they matter because while we laud the stalwart ethical characters like Luke Skywalker, he’s kind of boring. The closest he comes to moral confusion is his climbing out of the darkness in Return of the Jedi. And in fact it’s never really in doubt.
This is the entire problem of the original series: the virtue of the rebels and the evil of the Empire are never in question, not for a single second. But, alas, they are rebels, so give that a think.
Andor presents a character who’s uncertain of the value of rebellion, who sees it peopled by many dubious character and with little chance of success.
Do I dare say that most moral values should have some uncertainty as their condition of possibility? Perhaps this is a vestige of Christianity and the repeated references — modern, mind you — to the fact that God’s existence is non-verifiable [whether or not God existed has not always been a question that warranted consideration].
— Roseanna, 10 pp.
— Finished Roseanna
— Andor, episode 2.3 “Harvest“
Directed by Kleiman, etc., etc.
A work colleague pointed out that the episodes seem to develop to a third (they are released in sets of 3) and I think this is true. So “Harvest” was one of those episodes to keep you waiting for the next.
Andor has been stuck in space after getting away from a feckless group of rebels fighting amongst themselves (see my comments on April 23rd!). Bix and Brasso are in danger of being caught by imperial troops, and then Bix is nearly raped. But then Andor arrives at the last minute, so as to save them.
That is the plot that manipulates the audience, pushes their buttons with rape and murder and vengeance.
But then there is the other plot, the marriage of Mon Mothma’s daughter Leida to the son of a gangster. Mothma agreed to this because of (1) her husband’s debts, requiring payment and (2) her funnelling of money to the rebels, which otherwise might be uncovered, ruining her political career.
At the beginning of the episode the mother confesses to the daughter that only at that moment had she understood why her mother had been drunk at her own wedding (and thereby destroyed their relationship). It was because, she says, of the anxiety of giving a daughter … to a man? And all of the uncertainties and disappointments of marriage?
So she offers to her daughter the opportunity to walk away at that very moment, just as the ceremony is about to begin.
Her daughter replies, perfectly, “I wish you were drunk right now.”
A response by which Mothma is understandably irritated and remind the daughter that she must follow:
Leida’s is a brilliant response, not least of all because it underlines the quite different interests of the daughter, namely, that this traditional marriage is a means by which she can secure a life — consistent with a tradition that means something to her, even if it does not to her mother. So Leida’s response is equally a version of, “have you not been paying attention?!”
But, as only art can do, there is another meaning bound up with this scene, as Mothma has effectively traded her daughter to a gangster, even if reluctantly in part, for the sake of her own personal interests. While the daughter may not know this, the audience does.
But the reversal only occurs when Mothma accepts that her friend must be killed. That this entire transaction between a gangster and her family and her friend Kolma is now something that will continue to threaten her. Although Kolma had made all this possible, his subtle expressions of blackmail must be silenced.
In light of all of this, watching her dance is all the more powerful:
— New York Review of Books on Christianity’s basis in supercession and racism
— New York Review of Books on Max Boot’s Reagan biography
— New York Review of Books, Murray Kempton on bravery and not
— Andor, episodes 2.3–6
— The Man Who Went Up in Smoke, 100 pp.
Aging badly, we say, so certain of our contemporary judgment. Hindsight is 20-fucking-20!
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